Whoever said that prog is dead clearly didn't inform the outfit known as Mahogany Frog, a named steeped in the finest krautrock tradition (think Brainticket, Birth Control, Flied Egg, Electric Orange, Thirsty Moon, Out of Focus, etc., etc.) and well-conditioned in just about every axiom the aforementioned progressive rock genre forged as its own. Of course, prog is very much alive, and ensembles like the Frog are determined to keep it breathing. Essentially the work of two gents � Graham Epp and Jesse Warkentin � who command an arsenal of beloved antique analog keyboards (old Korgs, Micromoogs, ARP string ensemble) and equally decorated guitars to foment what feels like a mighty prog takeover of the existing mainstream rock corporate totem. DO5 also benefits from a real drummer and bassist (who also double, natch, on electronics and other keys) who "mimic", virtually to a fault, the aging bluster of many a powerhouse prog juggernaut, from Rush to Triumvirate, Soft Machine to Wallenstein...the names, references and homilies are legion.

Which all begs the question: are the Frog's compositions mere historical panache or do they have something to add to prog's mainframe? Perhaps that question is best answered by the explosive nature of the cover art, depicting a couple of keyboards exploding from a toaster abuzz over an amplifier. So the key word here is power, lots of it: in places, it runs unimpeded, trumpeting the very font of chaos, Emerson, Lake and Palmer crisscrossed with Mahavishnu-esque fusion and brought to Frankensteinian life; elsewhere, the group attempts to wring finesse out of their instruments but such delicate passages are mere bits of dust in the wind. This heady slice of power prog could in fact do with something of a lighter touch; often, the dense guitar distortion finds itself at odds with the quacking, quaking, quivering banks of analog synth, the kind of barely controlled excess Merzbow's constructed whole albums around. Yet a piece like "Demon Jigging Spoon" seems unafraid to embrace melody, sounding like a lost Canterbury nugget emboldened with the acrid tones of today's post-industrial phraseology. It's something of a glorious mess, which seems to be precisely the effect Mahogany Frog's aiming for: hit 'em over the head with so many blunt instruments they'll forget there's little in the way of constructive fabric binding the whole shaky canvas together.

All of this organized noise � and, even with the obvious virtuosity on display, is all it ultimately winds up being � paints the Frog as rabble-rousing mischief makers who have deconstructed the very corpus of prog while simultaneously wallowing in its wake: the pummeling drums, havoc-wreaking guitars, airbursts of over-modulated keyboards, and general speaker shredding looks to liberate prog's tattered history. Instead much of this Frog resembles a snake, one eating its own tale, chasing Roger Dean's dragons instead of slaying them in the name of, well, progress.